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Monday, January 16, 2012

The Shape Of My Heart: Katawa Shoujo

I just finished the last route of Katawa Shoujo,
the ‘much dreaded’ Shizune route. Much dreaded by me, at least. There was – by
hearsay – negative reaction on 4chan too, but I never bothered to check.

Katawa Shoujo was started as a tribute … or shall
we call it challenge? to the Japanese VN form. It was started as a 4chan pet
project approximately 5 years ago. Just to dispel any ambiguity, the people
involved met on 4chan – it was a collective project, but ‘collective’ doesn’t
mean including Skippy, Skippy’s dog and his Mom. People came and people went
away during the five years of intermittent development, which means no one
character is entirely the work of only one person. Writing the five path
scenarios (once again according to the Internet grapevine) was allocated by
drawing lots. I guess what I’m driving at is that KS is truly a collective
work, falling within my definition of fan work – not a single concept from one
author, but a shared bubble of concepts with different authors following a
chosen form.

The original core of developers decided to put
the protagonist – called Hisao Nakai – in the setting of a special boarding
school for disabled kids. Since he had to belong there, they thought a heart
condition would meet both the conditions of sudden onset (in the end they chose
heart arrhythmia, a condition that can go unnoticed amidst the growing pains of
adolescence) and chronicity (he’s supposed to stay sick to a certain degree, making
it easier to empathize with the other students). Naturally, he's supposed to
meet there the gamut of game paths/potential love interests/girls, each defined
by a specific disability: a deaf-mute girl (Shizune); a blind girl (Lilly); a
girl with disfiguring burns (Hanako); a double leg amputee (Emi); an armless
girl (Rin). The deaf-mute imposed the need of an interpreter, whom they decided
to include among the characters – and thus pink-haired, bubbly and loudspeaker
extraordinaire ‘Misha’ Mikado became part of the gang.

VNs, just like normal literature, allow the
players to experience romance vicariously as the main character in an interactive
novel format. In one of my previous attempts at a general definition, a VN is
supposed to exploit script ramifications deriving from a. unfamiliarity with
the story settings and characters, or b. tension points of the narrative. The
two principles overlap when you have to gauge your best options with
(fictional) people in situations that could swing either way, drawing you
closer or setting you on a divergent path.

The large majority of VNs I’ve encountered are
romance-driven. That means ‘you’ (the protagonist) are supposed to get
romantically involved with the members of the cast, towards a rewarding ending
(good or true end) or a kick-in-the-nuts bad ending. Still, when I say
‘romance’, I don’t mean the classic, ‘happily ever after’ kind of romance, but
the paperback modernistic abortion of random meetings, sudden (sexualized)
romance and inevitable parting of ways. Also, according to Internet wisdom, the
massive bulk of VNs are coming of age romance, so what’s at the other end of
the tunnel is the beginning of adult life and adult responsibilities. That kind
of wraps the ‘inevitable parting of ways’ requirement.

If such mention was still necessary, these VNs
are set in a high school environment. I don’t think I have to address why the
VN creators follow that formula, but I might take a pot shot at why their
intended audience likes it that way. I guess that’s because we didn’t have such
a glorified high school experience. We were through with high school before
being aware it’s supposed to be fun, too. I think the only people who ‘lived
the dream’ of high school romance were too busy playing football, hooking up
and sexing up their friends, instead of reading about it.

The other thing involved in playing VNs is a more
general affair. See, living vicariously through other people, especially
fictional people, means playing things safe. On one hand, you’re behind a
proxy, so there’s no possible harm in taking chances. On the other, you’re not losing
any prestige/face in being emotionally involved. In fact, sentimental resonance
with fictional characters is not only expected, but even encouraged (if only to
humor literature professors in class). So it’s a win-win situation.

(A third fact is that somebody else is driving,
i.e. there’s no hassle with making decisions … up to a point).

Or, if you want a bit of philosophical-literary
comment: have you ever stopped to consider how much of your literary diet
consists of loss and redemption stories?

The sensation of loss is not a
unique, limited-to-humans experience; what sets us apart from other living
beings is our coping strategy for loss. That big, beautiful knowledge engine
called the human brain has applied its most vaunted intellectual tools,
inductive and deductive logic, to find out where did this beast come from,
where’s it hiding, and how can we smoke it out of there and kill it.

Joking aside, loss is up there
with the most universal human experiences, rubbing shoulders with pain and
curiosity. There isn’t any one person that hasn’t experienced several instances
of loss, not just during the whole lifetime, but within a single day. We apply this
sensation to countable and uncountable things, objective and subjective items,
real objects and potential things. It’s not rocket science: you have something,
then you don’t have it anymore.

What always fascinated the human
mind was the particular case of loss of choice. Every conceivable event ever
has a simple binary switch: 1 – it happens; 0 – it doesn’t. Similarly, every
possible action can be taken or not. Loss of choice happens when one of the
binary choices becomes unavailable. Some external factor forces the issue and
one of the paths can no longer be followed. The human peculiarity is that we
applied the wonderful instrument of logic to extrapolate the magic moment which
is the last contiguous instance with both choices available. The very next
moment, one choice is arbitrarily removed. From this moment, human mind has further extrapolated the mystical last moment
where loss of choice could be avoided – let’s call it the fate switch. See how
nicely we made up a concept to cope with loss? Fate is the turning point of any
event going irreversibly and immutably on a path with no other alternatives.
Which is why we instinctively fear “fate” – it’s a terminator line.

Now, to the other half of our
formula – redemption. Human nature has long known itself to be pretty hung up
on loss. We’re not taking it too well. Further exploration has shown us that
there are two options and a dead end in coping with loss: roll with it; deal
with it; wallow in it. The former means being prepared and accepting loss; the
latter means active opposition to loss or its effects; wallowing is a shit
choice, let’s not talk about it ever again (see what I did there?).

Now, redemption can be achieved
through both the active coping strategies. “Redemption” is a loaded word due to
its multiple meanings and, while what I’m aiming for here is the meaning common
with “recovery”, I am mighty pleased to let the spiritual meanings overshadow it.
The recovery I have in mind comes after considerable struggle to find a
workaround for those – remember? – lost choices. Losing a choice doesn’t automatically
mean losing a path. Redefining your approach to a path blocked by loss of
choice is a process of self-discovery and personal reevaluation; the sense of
personal (spiritual) gain is very strong, often proportional to the adversity
encountered. In plain English; no pain, no gain.

Well, then. I believe you can
connect the dots: loss, choices, redemption. It’s not just the formula of
almost every VN out there, but the specific formula of Katawa Shoujo as well.
It starts with loss, it follows with taking choices, it ends with redemption.

“The action has to be set against the looming
menace of graduation. To keep the script reasonably short, let’s give it span
about a year or less. That means Hisao must transfer – and have his heart
attack – somewhere around his third year of high school. Throw in a hospital
stay of four to six months, tops. And we have to have some common (school-wide)
events for our routes, so the best time frame would be between spring and
summer. This way, we can drive Hisao from the low end of getting out of
hospital with a grim, lifelong condition and being transferred to a completely
new environment, to a high end of rallying his resources to meet the future,
accepting this new environment, and getting a steady girlfriend. Well, the
girlfriend is optional. Let’s keep it trashy, meeting-sexing-parting. But he
needs a girl to help him get his feet underneath and thinking of the future.”

Before going further with reverse engineering KS
(not really, it kills all the fun), let’s make a certain plot point clear. The
girls represent the challenges of this environment. That means they’ve been
here a while now, and are at various stages of coping with things,
but they already came through the thick
of it. That’s a major plot point. This way, Hisao will need them more than
they need him, but they will affect each other anyway, even if there is no
‘ever after’.

Well, I think I have my thumb here on what makes
KS a good and touching story. The average VN is more about the journey than the
destination (remember, no ‘ever after’). Hooking with the
girls will change their lives for ever. Protagonists, on the other hand, don’t
change much between beginning and end. Except, Hisao does change. KS is
good because the healing is often mutual.

And now, let’s get down to the brutal part of
personal opinions.

I played the routes more or less in the order of
personal preference … and hivemind influence. Back when I first played Act 1, I
rated Rin as the most interesting girl, Emi as the most accessible, Lilly as
the most relaxing. Hanako was a bit of a non-entity in Act 1, like an
afterthought on Lilly’s route. And I think I stayed the hell away from the
Shizune route. When the whole game was released, as I was browsing 4chan
(waiting for the game to install), I saw someone recommend going to town for
the ‘best girl route’. It’s where Lilly’s route is branching from the ‘meet the
cast’ chain of events. So I thought to myself, why the hell not? There were
Lilly screenshots everywhere, and I liked what I was seeing. In the end, I
trusted the word of strangers in chosing the first girl … but it was a
rewarding choice.

Love Will Find A Way: Lilly

Lilly is THE young woman of the KS ‘harem’. She’s
level headed; she’s capable; she’s got an excellent handle on her resources.
She even plans for the future. And she’s a lot of fun to be with – she has all
these quirks like not getting along with Shizune, liking her glass of wine,
calling out Hisao on small things of etiquette. And, if you stop to consider
it, despite being blind, she takes Hisao to the farthest places (I mean, even
Miss ‘Let’s Get Physical’ Emi takes him no further than the next town … to her own
home). She is lively, she is funny, she’s a little motherly, she’s a very good
friend to Hanako, she has great taste in clothes (man, those pajamas; and the
Chinese dress!). She’s independent. The only sour note is a past she’s not
comfortable with, and a family that treated her as a blight on their status.

With a girl so well adjusted, there’s not much
healing left to do. Of course, Hisao is enabling her to challenge her condition
more and more, but she’s quite set on her course. For most of her route, you’re
totally riding her wave, dude. And then, to quote a Van Halen song, love comes
walking in … hand in hand with sex. Fortunately, this is very touching (har
har), and before long you find out she likes to indulge in her pleasures, like
any healthy woman would.

And right when you think you’ve got the future by
the proverbial short hairs, that past of hers comes waltzing back like a bad
joke. The family who dumped her and her resourceful sister Akira in a Catholic
boarding school (like d’oh, she’s wearing a crucifix) suddenly decides to
acknowledge her, and summons her to Inverness, Scotland. Of course, she could
choose not to go. That was the most frustrating moment of her route, when she
drops everything to bridge the gap with her estranged family. I couldn’t help
blaming her for cutting our tie so out of the blue. And she’s too composed to
say she is sorry. God f#@*ing dammit, I raged. Then I went back to see what
could have been done better. And, suddenly … paper crane. The good end path
opened up. It went up with hope, it came down with despair … it stalled in the
pits of self pity. And then, again, Lady Fortune played a little tune, and
Katawa Shoujo came this close to offering a ‘happily ever after’.

But, I’m still mad. The difference between bad
end and good end feels thinner than a hair, and yet in one you never see each
other again, and in the other you’re so obviously committed to each other. Oh,
hang on. Committed. What did Hisao
do, besides falling in the street and thinking he was dying like a dog, without
any recourse to fate? He staked his all.
I was looking at the wrong side of the exchange. Lilly didn’t need to change
her view. Hisao had to grasp a once
in a lifetime chance. All he had to do was show in uncertain terms he
could not – would not - live without her.

Owner Of A Lonely Heart: Rin

My second route was Rin. See, when I first played
Act 1, I fell for her wry humor. I mean: “The end of the world as we know it.
Like every weekend. Only more dire.” Behind that disconnected façade, there was
a vital person with an incredible gift. I wanted to meet that person and tell
her it’s OK, don’t worry. I’m here.

Which is, like, exactly what “I” (Hisao) am
doing. The problem is that Rin’s route is taking a turn for the serious
way too soon. That dubious, pink-spectacled art professor Nomiya starts pushing
her to open a personal exhibition. Rin starts retreating into her shell when
the pressure is on. The script calls for Hisao to throw his weight around with
Rin, and push her against better judgment to do it. It’s not something I
enjoyed doing. It was too much strain, too soon. In retrospect, though, it may
have been the right time to make a bad choice. During Act 1, we’ve been fed the
false lead that Lilly takes care of Hanako, and Emi takes care of Rin. The
former is largely correct, the latter – a whole lot less. Emi is … busy being
Emi. She can wake Rin up, check If she’s eating enough, call up medical
attention when Rin is under the weather. But it kinda stops there. Rin is
weirding her out with the strange talk and apparent lack of coherence. When it
gets too much, she bolts. So being Hisao, and being on Rin’s case, is
ultimately helping. Sort of.

Meanwhile, though, Rin goes Weirdsville – meaning she’s trying to
mature as an artist overnight. Because she doesn’t know how to change her art –
her art-making process is something like a visual stream of consciousness – she
feels she has to change herself to change the art. Thus, she tries to ‘destroy’
herself by stripping away the few things that make up the current Rin, to
liberate a better Rin. The theory is hokey of course, and it’s not faring well
being put in practice. What Rin gets is a lot of disorientation, AND alienating
the one good friend she has – obviously Hisao. The fact that Rin isn’t very
articulate when under stress – and the weird path she chose to walk towards her
goal – are composing Hisao’s frustration step by step, until he feels like
throwing in the towel. She won’t accept his love. She won’t accept his presence.
She can not, or will not, explain how he can help. So he sort of gives up on
her, halfway, but then his conscience won’t let him. That would be when he
hears what happened to the artist whose studio Rin is inhabiting. He finds her
more lost than ever, in the middle of a sad attempt at self comforting. The
adult scene that follows is … marginally less sad, but still pretty hollow.

Well, I’ve surprised myself here by being a lot
more dispassionate than I felt when playing the route. You see, I know about
that weird disconnection thing. I’ve done it myself. I have the creative bug.
Sometimes, when the muse comes calling, there’s just no space for anything else
in my mind. So I tell the world to go hang, I’m busy with an Idea over here.
I don’t know how long it will take to exorcise. I haven’t been shown often
what happens to people caring for artists; I might say I'm enlightened now.

Things come crashing down when Rin has her
opening night. If Hisao keeps pushing – it’s like a sick joke, like telling her
to get up there and perform – she will just fade away into the indifferent
ending. Hisao is left feeling like the tool he’s been, while Rin leaves for art
college. That route has ‘early burnout’ stamped all over it. If he relents, Rin
has a chance to unwind into a more tolerable version – but Hisao still acts
like a tool, raving at her for not being happy with the choice she made (under
pressure, and with bad counseling). And then, at the end of a lot of tension,
comes the puzzling second adult scene. Well, it’s not that puzzling: this is
makeup sex. And Rin proves that she can talk straight when it counts. On one
hand, it’s such wretched timing, but on the other, she came to give him the
answer he wanted. It’s a mess. It’s bliss. It’s … something only Rin can pull
off like that.

(Something to do with Emi and helping breasts fit in a bra. Wisecracking Rin is back, huzzah!)

Yeah, but how about the mutual healing? Rin’s
lack of hands is so inconsequential. It’s like she wouldn’t even need them …
except for peeling oranges. And hugging. Her eccentricity isn’t a disease, even
if it drives other people slightly mad. She’s not high maintenance, despite
Hisao’s frequent fussing. She just needs someone to bridge the gap. It’s not
always a fordable gap, but if someone will wait for her on this side, she won’t
feel so alone on the other side. And Hisao … he learned to care for someone
else than himself. It's the first step on a long road, but he finally took it. The final scene – the dandelion motes flying away
– is a little heavy on the symbolism, but it ends on such an open note.